Hierarchical, authoritarian institutions tend to be self-perpetuating, because growing up under their influence creates submissive/authoritarian personalities -- people who both "respect" authority (based on fear of punishment) and desire to exercise it themselves on subordinates. Individuals with such a character structure do not really want to dismantle hierarchies, because they are afraid of the responsibility entailed by genuine freedom. It seems "natural" and "right" to them that society's institutions, from the authoritarian factory to the patriarchal family, should be pyramidal, with an elite at the top giving orders while those below them merely obey. Thus we have the spectacle of so called "Libertarians" and "anarcho" capitalists bleating about "liberty" while at the same time advocating factory fascism and privatised states. In short, authoritarian civilisation reproduces itself with each generation because, through an intricate system of conditioning that permeates every aspect of society, it creates masses of people who support the status quo.

So basically the nuclear family, as the base unit of consensus society, with its attendant "oedipal miseries," a response to the "agricultural revolution" with its imposed scarcity and its imposed hierarchy has to be abolished? I've read some authors advocate the more primal and more radical model -- the band.

The typical hunter/gatherer nomadic or semi-nomadic band consists of about 50 people. Within larger tribal societies the band-structure is fulfilled by clans within the tribe, or by sodalities such as initiatic or secret societies, hunt or war societies, gender societies, "children's republics," and so on. If the nuclear family is produced by scarcity (and results in miserliness), the band is produced by abundance -- and results in prodigality. The family is closed, by genetics, by the male's possession of women and children, by the hierarchic totality of agricultural/industrial society. The band is open -- not to everyone, of course, but to the affinity group, the initiates sworn to a bond of love. The band is not part of a larger hierarchy, but rather part of a horizontal pattern of custom, extended kinship, contract and alliance, spiritual affinities, etc.

In fact in our society many forces are working -- largely invisibly -- to phase out the nuclear family and bring back the band. Breakdowns in the structure of Work resonate in the shattered "stability" of the unit-home and unit-family. One's "band" nowadays includes friends, ex-spouses and lovers, people met at different jobs and pow-wows, affinity groups, special interest networks, mail networks, etc. The nuclear family becomes more and more obviously a trap, a cultural sinkhole, a neurotic secret implosion of split atoms -- and the obvious counter-strategy emerges spontaneously in the almost unconscious rediscovery of the more archaic and yet more post-industrial possibility of the band.

Hierarchical, authoritarian institutions tend to be self-perpetuating, because growing up under their influence creates submissive/authoritarian personalities -- people who both "respect" authority (based on fear of punishment) and desire to exercise it themselves on subordinates. Individuals with such a character structure do not really want to dismantle hierarchies, because they are afraid of the responsibility entailed by genuine freedom. It seems "natural" and "right" to them that society's institutions, from the authoritarian factory to the patriarchal family, should be pyramidal, with an elite at the top giving orders while those below them merely obey. Thus we have the spectacle of so called "Libertarians" and "anarcho" capitalists bleating about "liberty" while at the same time advocating factory fascism and privatised states. In short, authoritarian civilisation reproduces itself with each generation because, through an intricate system of conditioning that permeates every aspect of society, it creates masses of people who support the status quo.

So basically the nuclear family, as the base unit of consensus society, with its attendant "oedipal miseries," a response to the "agricultural revolution" with its imposed scarcity and its imposed hierarchy has to be abolished? I've read some authors advocate the more primal and more radical model -- the band.

The typical hunter/gatherer nomadic or semi-nomadic band consists of about 50 people. Within larger tribal societies the band-structure is fulfilled by clans within the tribe, or by sodalities such as initiatic or secret societies, hunt or war societies, gender societies, "children's republics," and so on. If the nuclear family is produced by scarcity (and results in miserliness), the band is produced by abundance -- and results in prodigality. The family is closed, by genetics, by the male's possession of women and children, by the hierarchic totality of agricultural/industrial society. The band is open -- not to everyone, of course, but to the affinity group, the initiates sworn to a bond of love. The band is not part of a larger hierarchy, but rather part of a horizontal pattern of custom, extended kinship, contract and alliance, spiritual affinities, etc.

In fact in our society many forces are working -- largely invisibly -- to phase out the nuclear family and bring back the band. Breakdowns in the structure of Work resonate in the shattered "stability" of the unit-home and unit-family. One's "band" nowadays includes friends, ex-spouses and lovers, people met at different jobs and pow-wows, affinity groups, special interest networks, mail networks, etc. The nuclear family becomes more and more obviously a trap, a cultural sinkhole, a neurotic secret implosion of split atoms -- and the obvious counter-strategy emerges spontaneously in the almost unconscious rediscovery of the more archaic and yet more post-industrial possibility of the band.

Doing nothing would just make things better. You know, leaving the system to proceed in the way it is going, so that its rotten character becomes fully manifest. Capitalism is smart enough to actually make small concessions in order to save its whole "configuration" ... is not, then, that the more ruthless and corrupt the capitalist system becomes, the more likely it'll be that largely impoverished working masses will revolt? It may just be that the more curruption and distrust results from the system, the more the indignation on part of the masses will grow -- an indignation and resentment towards the ruling class that will help spark the revolution, a violent act that will change for good the order of things of an incorrigible system like capitalism.

The rationale continues that in this radical culture of disappearance certain "Elements of Refusal", partly unconsciously and partly consciously, are to be employed. Simply not voting -- "apathy" keeps over half the nation from the polls; anarchism never accomplished as much! There are positive parallels: "networking" as an alternative to politics is practiced at many levels of society, and non-hierarchic organization has attained popularity even outside the anarchist movement, simply because it works. Refusal of Work can take the forms of absenteeism, on-job drunkenness, sabotage, and sheer inattention -- but it can also give rise to new modes of rebellion: more self- employment, participation in the "black" economy -- all more or less "invisible" activities compared to traditional leftist confrontational tactics such as the general strike.

Embracing all sorts of non-authoritarian forms of spirituality, from "unchurched" Christianity to neo-paganism. Or the "free religions" -- small, self-created, half-serious/half-fun cults influenced by such currents as Discordianism and anarcho-Taoism -- that can be found all over marginal America providing a growing "fourth way" outside the mainstream churches, the televangelical bigots, and New Age vapidity and consumerism. And of course, construction of "private moralities" in the Nietzschean sense: the spirituality of "free spirits." Refusal of Home as well: "homelessness," which most consider a form of victimization, not wishing to be forced into nomadology. But "homelessness" can in a sense be a virtue, an adventure. And finally refusal of the Family, which is clearly expressed through divorce, or some other "breakdown." Life can be happier without the nuclear family, whereupon a hundred flowers bloom -- from single parentage to group marriage to erotic affinity group.